


He rises from the flames

by Badpunsandaparka (Seven_Oomen)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Dark fic, Gen, Minor Character Death, Original Character Death(s), coldwave, implied coldwave, mick's origin story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 21:38:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5841907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seven_Oomen/pseuds/Badpunsandaparka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mick Rory's origin story.</p><p>As a boy Mick was bullied by a classmate, which caused him to develop Cryophobia. Or an irrational fear of the cold. One day when he is nine years old, Mick sets out to warm up his parental house, but things don't go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He rises from the flames

Mick sighed and closed his eyes, he couldn’t face Len while the words just flowed from his mouth. He hadn’t told anyone his story, not even Len, at least not all of it. It was simply too painful, but Len deserved to know the entire truth.

“I was seven when I went on my first field trip.”

******

“Hey Rory, maybe we should put you up with the cows. You’ll fit right in!” Jack laughed, followed by some of his other classmates. God he hated Jack, he was always being mean to him and calling him names. You know, sometimes, sometimes he wished he could just light a match and watch Jack burn. Hear him scream. He had no idea why he dreamed about that, but it made him smile when he thought about it. One day, Jack was gonna get what was coming to him. Mick really believed that with every fiber of his being.

“Just leave me alone, don’t be a Jackass!” Mick sneered, turning around and focusing back on the teacher. Miss Magpie was explaining something or the other about the slaughterhouse. He didn’t like it here, and the stories Miss Magpie told were really bad. Why would anyone do this awful stuff to little baby cows?!

Miss Magpie finished her story and guided them on to the next room, he felt someone tap him on the shoulder and turned around. Jack was grinning at him, pointing at some door on the other end of the hall. He didn’t get what was so funny about it all. It was just a door after all.

“Bet you’re not brave enough to go in there.” Jack taunted.

Not brave enough? He was Mick Rory, the bravest boy in his class and he’d prove that to Jack once and for all. Besides he wasn’t the one that had pissed his pants when the class gerbil had broken out.

“I ain’t scared of anything!”

He stormed over to the door, pulled it open and ran inside without another thought. Mick stopped a few steps in. Was that his own breath he could see? Cold started settling over him as if he’d fallen in the frozen lake in the forest. It seeped through his torn jeans and his threadbare jacket. He shivered and looked around, there was meat stored everywhere, even entire carcasses. He heard Jack laugh behind him and the door closed with a bang behind him.

“No!” He threw himself at the door, banging and screaming as the cold licked at his feet and hands. His ears and felt frozen already and the tears on his cheeks turned to ice before they could roll of his face. “Let me out! Let me out!”

This was scarier than Nick scaring him in the middle of the night. Scarier than dad’s hitting him in anger, scarier than his mom screaming at him. He was gonna die in the freezing cold and nobody but Dick would care about him. “Let me out!” He called out, his throat raw from screaming and sobbing as he fought to keep the cold out of his limbs.But he was rapidly losing that battle. He just felt so cold…

Maybe nobody would notice if he just slept for fifteen minutes. He could just close his eyes…

“Mick! Mick! Mick wake up!” He felt someone shaking him, it was nice and warm here. Why was it warm? The last thing he remembered was the cold.

“Dickie?” He squinted against the light and smiled as his brother, Richard, otherwise known as Dickie, was holding him.

“Hey Mickie. It’s gonna be okay. I’ve got you.”

And when his nine year old brother said that, it was usually true. Jack had been reprimanded for what he had done, he’d gotten a detention. But Mick himself? He got suspended. Jack had blamed it all on him, of course. The little golden boy had weaseled his way out of things, as always.

After that day he’d always been terrified of the cold, and his fascination with fire began in earnest. Flames were warm, their burn would comfort, their heat soothed. It was pure, warm, welcoming. And it had a nice tendency to hurt those that had once hurt him.

******

Mick’s hands stopped shaking when Len reached out for them. The other man didn’t say anything, just held him to let him know he was there.

“I was nine when a harsh winter hit the family farm hard. It was always cold.”

******

Nick had stolen his comforter again. His fifteen year old brother had always been a jerk to him and Dickie. The house was just so cold, his teeth were chattering as he made his way down the stairs and into the living room. There was a large fireplace there. Dad had shown him how to build a fire in it, you just put in wood, some tinder and some lighter fluid if you wanted a really intense fire. Okay, so dad hadn’t said that last part, but Mick had read about fire. What it could do and how it reached its full potential.

He opened the the valve that led to the chimney, so the smoke could escape after the fire was lit, and opened the large wooden box near the rickety bookcase. Dad saved the big logs in here. He struggled to open the lock and pushed the lid open, most big logs had already been used, but there were a few left in there.

He set up the fireplace, drenched the wood in lighter fluid and threw a burning match onto it. Fire burst up, setting the paintings above the fireplace alight. He shielded his face with arms and cried out as the fire licked at the sleeves of his pajama shirt. He quickly threw it off and stumbled back, watching in awe as the fire in the living room spread. Heat burst all around him, creating a display of beautiful golden and orange hue. He didn’t feel cold anymore, only nice and warm as the fire intensified. He calmly walked to the door and put on his dad’s jacket as the fire spread to the stairs.

Mick simply walked out and didn’t look back at the farm until he was out of the fire’s direct reach. Screams rose from the farm. He recognized his mom, Nicholas and Richard, their cries of terror rising from the roaring of the flames.

None of his family survived that night. Dickie, or Richard had been the first to die. His older brother had gone looking for him and had gotten crushed by a falling support beam, just outside Mick’s bedroom. Nicholas had gotten trapped in the attic and had been the last to burn to death.

His mother had fallen down the stairs, sustaining terrible burn wounds before breaking her neck on the last step. And his father, the little coward, had jumped out of the window, but had impaled himself on the pitchfork that he left out in the open. He bled to death while hearing the rest of the family scream.

The only one that had survived was Mick, the instigator of the fire. But the only death he mourned was Richard’s. The only family member that had loved him, cared for him and protected him. Dickie hadn’t deserved this death. And it was all Mick’s fault. He had to live with the guilt, still.

*******

“He died because he wanted to protect me.” Mick couldn’t stop a tear from rolling down his cheek. It was the one death he had caused, that he still regretted and mourned to this very day. “Because I was a stupid little kid that got cold.”

“Mick…” Len’s voice was gentle but it did little to comfort him in that moment. He appreciated the attempt, he truly did. But there were things in his life that even Lenny couldn’t fix. For he was truly a broken man.


End file.
